Developing Educational Standards
State Groups
Developing Educational Standards is an annotated list of Internet sites with K-12 educational standards and curriculum frameworks documents, maintained by Charles Hill and the Putnam Valley Schools in New York. Your help with updates or corrections is greatly appreciated. [This page was last updated on July 19, 2000.] -> Return to the Standards index page.
Arizona Parents for Traditional Education
The Arizona Parents for Traditional Education, a very conservative group, expresses its opposition to Arizona standards (particularly any ones they can link to either whole language or outcome based education).
California Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards
The Commission for the Establishment of Academic Content and Performance Standards, a 1997 entrant into the field of standards development, prepared a set of K-12 content and performance standards in the areas of reading, writing, math,science, and social studies. The state adopted other revised standards between December 1997 and October 1998. As a result, the commission went out of business on December 31, 1998. (It was located at http://www.ca.gov/goldstandards/index.html.)
California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse
The California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse maintains an impressive and comprehensive databaseof more than 3700 instructional materials linked to state standards and curriculum frameworks. You can search the database by keyword, subject, platorm, or grade level - or dig down into the areas of ELA, math, science, or social studies and do a search on individual standards. The results generally lead you to highly rated software titles (the rating criteria are described on the web site). (Thanks to Laurie Swiryn of Cuesta Technologies for information about this link.)
Center for School Reform
The Center for School Reform publishes research and advocacy reports on such topics as charter schools, educational funding, and standards. It has published an extensive report on Developing and Implementing Academic Standards intendend to help readers assess the quality of and compliance with standards.
Delaware Curriculum Consumers Information Service
The Curriculum Consumers Information Service (CCIS) has begun to map various instructional materials to the state standards. Though the web site indicates it was last updated four years ago (in 1996), it contains some useful information in the areas of math and science.
Florida Gulf Coast University School of Education
Florida Gulf Coast University School of Education has set up a SunshineStateStandards.net with links to the sunshine standards for language arts, science, social studies, math, foreign language, the arts, health, and physical education. Clicking on a link takes you to a page with that subject's standards along with clickable links to benchmarks for grades pre-K to 2, 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. Some of the benchmarks have links to relevant lesson plans.
Health Science Technology Education
The Health Science Technology Education program at Texas A&M; University developed the TEKS in that area. The HSTE site provides relevant course guides and links to some related Internet resources. Pages dealing with standards and frameworks are under development. (Thanks to Renee Krzypkowskiof HSTE for this information.)
INSTRUCT
Created by the Mathematical Sciences Department at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, INSTRUCT (Implementing the NCTM School Teaching Recommendations Using Collaborative Telecommunications) uses a detailed and informative web site, combined with discussion groups, to help math teachers actively use the NCTM standards in their classrooms.
Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance
The Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, part of the state's Statewide Systemic Initiative, has a copy of the state's Curriculum Framework for Mathematics and Science. The document contains a general set of cross-curricular standards along with valuable material regarding what constitutes good teaching strategies in math and science, brief examples, references, and ideas about assessment. One portion of the document refers specifically to preservice standards for teachers. You can look at the document on line or download it in either Macintosh or Windows versions in a file that is about one meg big.
Massachusetts School Library Media Association
The Professional Standards Committee of the Massachusetts School Library Media Association has prepared a Standards for School Library Media Centers in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, now available on the DOE page. The document contains recommendations about library media center staffing levels, collections, and budgets; various library media standards; and sample policies on such of topics as student use of the Internet. (Thanks to Margaret Hallisey, 1996-97 President of the MSLMA for alerting me to this document.)
National Scalable Cluster Project
The National Scalable Cluster Project of the University of Pennsylvania has converted Adobe Acrobat versions of the proposed state standards documents for reading and writing and for math to html copies you can read on their NSCP K-12 Standards Homepage. (Thanks to Dr. Kevin Sterner of the NSCP for this information.)
New Jersey Mathematics Coalition
The New Jersey Mathematics Coalition offers an impressive set of math resources for both teachers and families, not the least of which is the official web version of the New Jersey Mathematics Curriculum Framework.
New York Empire State Partnerships Project
The Empire State Partnerships Project is a collaborative venture between the State Education Department and the NYS Council on the Arts designed to assist teachers and schools to meet the demands of the state's new learning standards. Its Online Resource Guide contains lists of annotated links to Internet sites dealing with the arts as well as education in general.
New York Lower Hudson Regional Information Center
The Lower Hudson Regional Information Center has set up a Best Practices Database containing teacher-developed projects that are aligned with the new math, science, and technology standards.
New York Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES and Regional Information Center
In collaboration with the New York State Education Department, OCM BOCES (the Onondaga-Cortland-Madison BOCES Regional Information Center) maintains a State Learning Standards site that offers quick access to NYS standards, frameworks, and assessment resources for the arts; career development and occupational studies; English language arts; health, physical education, and home economics; math, science, and technology; and social studies. Checking on the Planned Assessment of New York State Standards page on a regular basis may also be a good idea, as the time and grades of their administration still appears open to some changes.
New York State School Board Association
The New York State School Board Association's Download Library contains several articles about the New York State learning standards. Some articles are descriptive while others indicate the Association's stance on standards-related issues.
New York State Systemic Initiative
The New York State Systemic Initiative's site contains instructional resources, news and updates, and links to a wealth of information about science, math, technology, standards, and assessment.
Ohio Council for the Social Studies
The Ohio Council for the Social Studies offers a long text file of the November 1994 Ohio Model Competency-Based Social Studies Program as well as links to portions of both the US and World History Standards.
Ohio School Board Member
Diana Fessler, a member of the Ohio State Board of Education, uses her personal web page to express her opinions on a variety of subjects - including her serious reservations about the Ohio standards. (Thanks to Debbie Daigler for information about this page.)
Oregon Educational Media Association
The Oregon Educational Media Association has prepared Information Literacy Guidelines for the Oregon Common Curriculum Goals in English/Language Arts as well as for some portions of the arts, health, math, science, and social studies. The guidelines correlate these standards and goals to the draft Information Literacy Standards developed by AASL and AECT. (Thanks to Janet Murray of the Milken Educator Virtual Workspace for this information.)
Oregon Educational Technology Consortium
The Oregon Educational Technology Consortium (OETC) has published a set of District Technology Program Guidelines that includes content and benchmark standards and a recommended assessment system. (Thanks to Amanda Jaffe-Katz of Technion alerting me that this site had been updated.)
Oregon Public Education Network Clearinghouse
The Oregon Public Education Network Clearinghouse maintains an Oregon School Reform site containing valuable resources related to state standards as well as to PASS. The Oregon Content Standards page, in particular, has a rich offering - including links to a searchable data base containing common curriculum goals, content standards, and benchmarks for various key grade levels in several different subjects.
P.R.E.S.S.
P.R.E.S.S. (Parents Raising Educational Standards in Schools) is a Wisconsin group that believes that many educational practices lack a foundation in "academic fundamentals" or "supportive research." Its web site contains articles, newspaper reports, and links dealing with standards, language arts, environmental education, assessment, charter schools, and other topics.
SciMathMN
SciMathMN, a "statewide, public/private partnership which advocates and supports standards-based systemic improvements" in math and science education, offers a variety of resources for parents and educators. These include a one page review of the status of the state's standards, Adobe Acrobat copies of the math and science standards (as well as ordering information for printed versions), and copies of a newsletter and several reports.
Springfield, Illinois Public School District 186
The Springfield Public School District 186 has created a Learning Standards site that presents some of the work developed by staff from throughout the district over the past several years. The site offers an overview, timeline, and a set of one-page Adobe Acrobat files for key subjects in each grade from kindergarten through eight. Each file lists several grade level goals and associated learning standards for its subject area. According to the site, the standards are coordinated with the ISBE standards. (Thanks to Kathy Hulcher of the Springfield Public Schools for this information.)
Texas Alternative Document Drafters
A Texas Alternative Document Draft has been written by a group of people who believe that the Texas English language arts standards have set off in the wrong direction. They argue that standards need to state explicitly what students and teachers are expected to know or do, to focus on content and not process, and to teach reading through a heavy emphasis on phonics. [Thanks to Donna Garner and Jimmy Kilpatrick for alerting me to this site.]
Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts
The Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts seeks to serve as a source of exemplary lessons and other instructional material for teachers to use when implementing the new TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). It has some resources currently on line and plans to incorporate a lot more - including work that teachers can submit through this site. (Thanks to [email protected] for this information.)
Texas Mathematics TEKS Toolkit
The Mathematics TEKS Toolkit provides easily accessible copies of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for math arranged both by grade level and content strand, a comparison of the TEKS and the Essential Elements, sample activities tied to specific parts of the TEKS, and an excellect selection of other resources. [My thanks to Phil Larson of Bob Jones University Press for link information.]
Texas Social Studies Center for Educator Development
The Social Studies Center for Educator Development (SSCED) has a well-designed and cross-referenced version of the Texas social studies TEKS, along with links to various resources in such areas of lesson plans, technology, and assessment. <(Thanks go to Sarah Bednarz, Department of Geography at Texas A&M; University, for site update information.)
Texas Statewide Systemic Initiative
The Texas Statewide Systemic Initiative offers newsletters, training information, and other imaterial designed to help teachers impelement the TEKS. The site also has links to TEKS toolkits in math and science that it is developing for the state. (Thanks go to Cathy Seeley, Director of Policy and Professional Development of the Texas SSI, for this information.)
Utah Education Network
The Utah Education Network has the standards for the state's Core Curriculum on line. A Core Curriculum/Course Descriptions page has links to documents for major subject areas, with individual documents for grades K to 6 and documents for the secondary grades that are either grouped by grade or by topic. A typical document describes a course, lists core standards, and briefly describes student objectives that meet each standard. UEN also has a very strong set of links to Internet resources as well as to its own set of lesson plans (including a searchable Curriculum Database). A similar set of core curriculum resources is available from the Utah Department of Education's Curriculum and Instruction Homepage (some of which include links back to UEN's pages). Additional information in the areas of occupational, family and consumer sciences, and technology education appear on the Applied Technology Education page.(Thanks go to Ginny Gale from the UtahLink/Utah Education Network, June Matheson from the Utah State Office of Education, and Virgil Jacobsen from the Alpine School District in American Fork, Utah for UEN updates.)
Washington Library Media Association
Prepared by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Washington Library Media Association in 1996, the state's Essential Skills for Information Literacy briefly defines six essential skills and benchmarks them at three different levels (roughly speaking, the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades). (Thanks to Janet Murray of the Milken Educator Virtual Workspace for this information.)
